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Started back in September (29th), I started to have BSOD crashes on my system. Prior to that, any sort of crash was very random, irregular and rare. Since that date, I've been experiencing BSOD crashes exclusively when playing games. At first, it was just Minecraft, which I installed and played for the first time in close to a year around that date. Then, I installed Battlefield 2: Bad Company and tried to play BF2:BC Vietnam online. That crashed into a BSOD as well. Since I'm very busy working a full-time job and attending school, I've been putting off looking into the issue thinking that it wasn't anything to stress out about.

Afterall, it was only happening while playing Minecraft -- I gave up on BF2:BC / Vietnam after a third crash. However, a few days ago it happened for the first time while playing Killing Floor. And additionally, KF seemed to be a bit choppy around the same time. Which was strange, because my system always ran KF solidly. (Same thing with BF2:BC.) I've been running some tests on my system, and I have the dump files prepared, so I'm going to be posting the information. Before even starting, I want to thank everyone here for dedicating so much time to helping people -- really, it reminds me of the community I used to hang out with back in the day (90s) on IRC, on Dal.net, in #nohack (except, you know, expanded to include all computing issues).

Anyway...

Replication Steps

1. Minecraft - Shortly after logging in to Minecraft, my performance drops dramatically, especially if I'm near a lot of animals on screen, or performing a lot of actions (e.g., mining a ton). Then, after a minute or two of unplayable choppiness, BSOD.

2. BF2:BC / Vietnam - Within about 5-10 minutes of logging in a third time, I crashed again to a BSOD. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary in the game.

3. Killing Floor - The crash happened after an hour and a half, maybe two hours in the game. I was playing multiplayer, not a very large group or anything, and just crashed seemingly at an average gaming system load.

4. I have not experienced any crashes or BSODs while compiling Java code in Eclipse, including relatively complex (for a student) programs like an ant colony simulation and things like that. This was also while having multiple Firefox tabs open, and with Steam running in the background.

5. Since starting to run tests yesterday, and since switching my RAM sticks around (reversing positions), my system seems to be sluggish. For example, there is a delay when opening a link in Firefox, opening a new tab, etc. It's reminiscent of that delay a lot of systems have with trying to open a new video in YouTube -- only none of these pages include heavily embedded content or anything.

Additionally, booting into Windows from login now seems to take approximately 5-10 seconds longer than I'm used to. And then, Steam seems to take much longer before starting up (automatically at boot), somewhere in the range of 20-30 seconds longer. And I no longer receive the Steam update attempts (some Steam installations go faulty, and seem to always require a new update when booting in, even if there isn't a need for one).

Resolution Steps

1. Check Disk - No errors detected

2. Scan FC - sfc /scannow - No integrity violations found.

3. memtest86 - I ran 7 successful passes last night. 0 errors. I ran another pass this morning with by turning on an additional option (in option 7 --> it was "booting" something, if I remember correctly). This required me to hit a key (up arrow) regularly to keep the scan going. After one pass, I hit Esc and rebooted. There were also 0 errors on that pass.

4. In BIOS, my CPU temperature was detailed as 45C / 113F, and the system temperature at 31C / 87F -- this was after approximately six and a half hours of memtest running.

5. Checked my fans, and dust in the system. I'll have to buy a can of compressed air, because there are still some small amounts of dust around the inside of the case. But i blue out most of it. And all of my fans are clean; I actually clean them regularly, including the dust trap at the HDD intake. I have two in-take fans there, one fan on top of the system pulling air out, and another with the PSU pulling air out. Both of the exhaust fans are blowing cool air all of the time, even under heavy load. (i.e., while gaming)

Information From Windows Action Center

* Every single one of the thirteen errors looks like this (with the exception that the values for BCP2, 3, and 4 differ):

For whatever reason, I am unable to submit any of these errors to Microsoft. Whether I have one selected or all of them, or whether I attempt to submit the error information after recovering from the BSOD and booting back up, I run into this: "Some of the reports could not be uploaded to the Windows Error Reporting service. Please try again later." A Google search indicates this is because the associated dump files are too large to be submitted in this way.

Notes About Activity Since Attempting Resolution Steps

A peculiar issue other than the sluggishness mentioned earlier is this: yesterday, Windows failed to boot and Windows was "unable to determine the cause of the problem." The description was "Unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem." This is after I had reversed the two RAM sticks in my system. Then, after making sure the RAM sticks were seated properly (they were), I was able to boot into Windows but the Steam Client Bootstrapper failed to load, stopped responding and closed. After a reboot, this is no longer an issue.

Windows also had to reinstall my Linksys RangePlay Wireless USB Network Adapter after reboot -- I moved it from a front USB port to one on the back of my PC. Additionally, the USB thumb drive with memtest86 installed on it (bootable) also needed to have its drivers reinstalled by Windows. This I'm not too surprised with, as my front USB ports always behaved strangely. (I reused an old LianLi tower with this build; the build in USB ports are mismatched with the USB ports on my motherboard. 1.0 vs 2.0, I believe.)

And now, most frustratingly, while typing this, I occasionally have to wait for the text that I typed to be entered -- there is a brief stutter once in a while, between what I typed and when it appears. Windows responsiveness here reminds me of that stutter mentioned earlier when opening a new tab, as an example.

Files Associated With the Error, According to BlueScreenView

Each dump file implicates hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe as issues. Some only highlight hal.dll in red; others both.

Does anyone have any sugggestions? Are there any dump files that I should post here? Thank you for your time and help. I sincerely appreciate it.

Bug check 124 error codes are hardware issues. The fact that they all go back to the hal.dll indictes there are problems with the hardware abstraction processes that allow the OS to operate any hardware device. The hal.dll+12a3b error code is heat-related. Check the ventilation, fan and cables to make sure the motherboard is fully ventilated. You may need to reseat (don't just jiggle) all the cards, memory and cables.

You may also need to run a startup repair from an installation disk to repair the hal data link library.

Reason For the Edit: I just experienced another BCCode 124 + "A Hyper Transport sync flood error" message on reboot. I performed this step again, for the updated system error information. Since the other errors don't seem to be really related to my issue. The other errors from 10/22/13 seem to have been because MSI Live Update 5 was bugging out installed nVidia drivers.

Application errors:
==================
Error: (10/22/2013 06:49:54 PM) (Source: Application Hang) (User: )
Description: The program mmc.exe version 6.1.7600.16385 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.

Error: (10/18/2013 10:44:25 AM) (Source: ESENT) (User: )
Description: WinMail (728) WindowsMail0: The backup has been stopped because it was halted by the client or the connection with the client failed.

Error: (10/18/2013 10:44:22 AM) (Source: ESENT) (User: )
Description: WinMail (2464) WindowsMail0: The backup has been stopped because it was halted by the client or the connection with the client failed.

1. I completely reformatted my computer a week ago. That's why I have so few applications installed, and no games. After reformatting, everything seems to have been running well for a day or two -- although I didn't install any games to test out. But after about two days of Windows Updates, I noticed some sluggishness and then the crashes started to happen again.

2. Some of the above programs were just installed within the hour, such as AMD Catalyst Installer Manager and Catalyst Control Center. The errors occurred before installing them, or using MSI Live Update 5 (explained next).

3. Now, typically when I get the BCCode error, which I just did again five minutes ago, I receive this error message when it automatically reboots: "A Hyper Transport sync flood error occurred on last boot. Press F1 to Resumenter [sic] Setup Menu, F11 to enter Boot Menu." Hitting F11 does nothing; hitting F1 allows me to select how to reload Windows (safe mode; safe mode + networking; as normal)

4. The errors above from 10/22/13 occurred while MSI Live Update 5 was bugging out. It installed software, then attempted to reinstall it. Then downloaded different nVidia drivers than the latest ones that I had installed. I have since removed MSI LiveUpdate 5 as you might imagine.

5. Also, over the past few days, I updated / flashed BIOS to the latest version for my motherboard, an MSI 870-G45. I've also run multile hard drive checks from Hiren's Boot CD. No errors found.

Negative. I have only a single nVidia 460 GTX running. According to MSI Afterburner, my GPU temperature is ~37 C +/-2 over the past fifteen minutes. (Multitasking, plus having two YouTube videos running at 720p and 1080p respectively.

Bug check 124 error codes are hardware issues. The fact that they all go back to the hal.dll indictes there are problems with the hardware abstraction processes that allow the OS to operate any hardware device. The hal.dll+12a3b error code is heat-related. Check the ventilation, fan and cables to make sure the motherboard is fully ventilated. You may need to reseat (don't just jiggle) all the cards, memory and cables.

You may also need to run a startup repair from an installation disk to repair the hal data link library.

I don't seem to be having any temperature issues. The case is cleaned, well-ventilated, all of the fans are working swell and everything seemed snug and secure. Any detailed information on the hal data link library repair? I'd like to give that a go.

According to MSI Afterburner, my GPU temperature is ~37 C +/-2 over the past fifteen minutes. Multitasking, plus having two YouTube videos running at 720p and 1080p respectively. It drops down to ~34 C when I'm idling.

According to Core Temp, my CPU #0 temperature is 20-25 C while getting all three cores up to about 40-45% load with multiple tabs / multitasking, multiple YouTube videos playing at the same time, etc. When the loads drop down <= 25%, the temperature drops down to 19-20 C.

I don't seem to be having any temperature issues. The case is cleaned, well-ventilated, all of the fans are working swell and everything seemed snug and secure. Any detailed information on the hal data link library repair? I'd like to give that a go.

Before we repair the hal.dll, your latest logs indicate, again, that heating issues seem to be causing serious problems. The “Hyper Transport sync flood error” is a BIOS error, usually seen in AMD CPUs. These errors occur due to overheating, but can also be caused by faulty memory.

The “A fatal hardware error has occurred. Component: AMD Northbridge” error appears to be happening because the northbridge chip is overheating. The northbridge manages CPU and RAM. If there is only a heatsink installed on the northbridge chipset, you may want to add a fan.

The fact that you've reformatted and you're still having issues makes it fairly clear the main issues are hardware related. Make sure all your chipsets are free of obstructions and properly venitaled. You may also want to test your system memory.

On another note, the 0xc0000374 error in ntdll.dll linked to Explorer can be fixed by removing all third party add ons in that browser.

If none of the above addresses the issue, we can revisit fixing the hal.dll.

I don't seem to be having any temperature issues. The case is cleaned, well-ventilated, all of the fans are working swell and everything seemed snug and secure. Any detailed information on the hal data link library repair? I'd like to give that a go.

Before we repair the hal.dll, your latest logs indicate, again, that heating issues seem to be causing serious problems. The “Hyper Transport sync flood error” is a BIOS error, usually seen in AMD CPUs. These errors occur due to overheating, but can also be caused by faulty memory.

The “A fatal hardware error has occurred. Component: AMD Northbridge” error appears to be happening because the northbridge chip is overheating. The northbridge manages CPU and RAM. If there is only a heatsink installed on the northbridge chipset, you may want to add a fan.

The fact that you've reformatted and you're still having issues makes it fairly clear the main issues are hardware related. Make sure all your chipsets are free of obstructions and properly venitaled. You may also want to test your system memory.

On another note, the 0xc0000374 error in ntdll.dll linked to Explorer can be fixed by removing all third party add ons in that browser.

If none of the above addresses the issue, we can revisit fixing the hal.dll.

Thank you for your time; I certainly appreciate it.

Regarding specific issues:

1. The “Hyper Transport sync flood error” is a BIOS error, usually seen in AMD CPUs. These errors occur due to overheating, but can also be caused by faulty memory.

I've been reading elsewhere that this may potentially be solved by upping the voltage to the CPU-NB, that it has to perform faster than the HT clock or an HTSFE can occur. An hour ago, I did exactly this. I also disabled HPET (High Precision Event Timers) as well, as per those threads. Right now, I have Prime95 running various stress tests. And overall, the system feels "good." (Not that it hasn't before, just before crashing.)

If this is indeed the issue, I'm puzzled at how it can happen. But I'm thinking now, about over the Summer when I "Easy OCed" my computer via dual switches on my motherboard. I think I OCed by 10%, or no more than 15%, as instructed via the MSI 870-G45 manual. I changed this back two weeks ago, and noticed no difference -- I was still having the stability issues. Could this have produced different voltage or speed settings in BIOS? Link.

2. Component: AMD Northbridge” error appears to be happening because the northbridge chip is overheating.

Is there a way to test this first? I mean, it may just be that voltage issue, right? And it's appearing then as an overheating issue. Or it couldn't work like that?

3. On another note, the 0xc0000374 error in ntdll.dll linked to Explorer can be fixed by removing all third party add ons in that browser.

I don't even use IE. I think the error may have occurred when Core Temp tried to automatically install the Yahoo! Browser Toolbar.

4. The fact that you've reformatted and you're still having issues makes it fairly clear the main issues are hardware related.

Does the lack of any sort of noticeable issue for two days after the reformat stand against this premise at all? Or is that far too short of a time frame to really say anything?

About 50% of time, STOP 0x124 errors are caused by a faulty CPU. Unfortunately there is no false proof way exist to test a CPU. You should swap it with another known good one for accurate checking. Stress testing the system with Prime95 often helpful in finding failed CPU cores. Please read instructions from the below link for more info.

What you need to do is to run SmallFFT test and blend test for two continuous hours (one after another). Also select Advanced-->Round off checking to detect core failures ( see reply #1). You will find the results in a file named "results.txt".